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Friday, 12 November 2010

Digital Film Production: Making a Music Video

With one brief completed it's time for a new one; In this Digital Film Production brief I'm given the task of creating a music video for a piece of music found on The Free Music Archive which offers a collection of music under the creative commons license, this is so that I can create a video without worrying about lawsuits from copyrights and the such. With a wide range of music to choose I was having trouble on trying to settle on something. In the end I settled on one of two songs as I had developed a rough idea for each one, I'm to follow throw with my first choice and my other is really more of a back up if it turns out my first concept has been too ambitious.

The first choice is the song "Echoplex" by Nine Inch Nails (to listen click this link). The reason why I chose this song is that whilst listening to it I began to imagine imagery to go with the music that I feel when directed and co-ordinated correctly will create a fairly impressive music video.

My concept for this video is that a man wakes up in a small room occupied by only himself, a chair and an intercom speaker in the top corner of the room. As the video progresses food in given to the character on trays from the bottom of the door and we'll learn more of his captor as they're seen from else where surrounded by antique AV equipment (generally audio stuff) as she speaks into a microphone explaining why he's there etc. Eventually the main character has an out burst and try to escape but his efforts are futile.

Aesthetically I want the room to be fairly plain and not too large with no windows and a heavy door. The character will be dressed in fitted gray/black colours and the chair to be made of a light wood like such as beech or pine. The Vintage equipment in the watcher's room doesn't have to be from a specific era but do just be generally not of the last 20/30 years, I'm thinking lots of dials,buttons and wires. For the character of the watcher I want a fairly appealing female although the character will never be seen in full there are small details such as red nails and lipstick. I also want to try incorporate the Echoplex design (see attached picture above) in the video some how as a nod to graphic designer Rob Sheridan.

My second choice is the song "Helix Nebula" by Anamanaguchi (to listen click this link). With it's unusual structure and it's upbeat riffs the song inspires many images, one such that I feel would be a good idea is a heavy camera effects narrative.

The concept would be a boy trying to get the attention of a girl through out various locations in the city and each one of his endeavors would be turned down until she begins to either give in to his romantic gestures or genuinely fall for him. This would all be depicted through the use of live stop motion potentially with the use of graphics over the top to empahise certain aspects in scenes.

The aesthetic for this would be fairly simple as the girl would have to be fairly cute and the guy fairly good looking and both dressed in what would be considered the highest fashionable H&M clothing. Summer style lighting (which maybe hard in winter days) to try replicate visually the upbeat feel of the music.

Whilst this concept demands more in the vfx department it's considerably easier to pull off due to the lack of having to find props and locations to shoot in.

For now I'm going to keep with the "Echoplex" concept and continue forward in trying to plan and acquire props. stay tuned for more!